In 1875 the whaling barque Catalpa successfully released six Irish political prisoners from the British penal colony in Western Australia. Orchestrated by Fenians based in the United States of America, the 1876 Catalpa was purchased in order to sail from New Bedford, Massachusetts to Western Australia under the disguise of a legitimate commercial venture. On 17 April the six convicts escaped from a working party outside the Fremantle prison and raced to the coast where they rowed to the Catalpa anchored offshore into International waters. Despite being chased by a steamship commandeered by the colonial governor, William Cleaver Robinson, the Catalpa sailed into the Indian Ocean, and on 24 August 1876 the boat returned to New Bedford, where they were greeted by thousands of supporters and a 70-gun salute.